An uneven miscellany of fiction, autobiography, and commentary from the author of, most recently, A Son of the Circus (1994). The title essay, about a retarded pigkeeper mocked and harassed by the young John Irving and his pals (in Exeter, New Hampshire, the author's hometown), is presented as a meditation on the writer's need to give his attention, and his heart, even to the unlikeliest of subjects. A long autobiographical sequence is brightly written and offers interesting details about Irving's youth and young writing life, but bogs down in redundant and tendentious accounts of his adventures as a wrestler, wrestling coach, and referee (an avocation that, Irving cheerfully concedes, he's taken beyond the point of obsession) and that rather flaunts a somewhat politicized remembrance of "My Dinner at the White House." A section of six short stories (all Irving has produced) includes some forgettable pieces (which their author has the good grace to dismiss as unimportant) from Playboy and Esquire, but also two of Irving's most skillful fictions: "The Pension Grillparzer," a witty tale of Americans in Europe that was first published as part of Garp, and "Interior Space," a complex portrayal of a young marriage endangered by pettiness and sheer foolishness, as well as mortality. A concluding trio of essays written in homage to writers Irving admires includes a pedestrian "Introduction to A Christmas Carol" (written for a Modern Library reprint) and a longer piece in praise of "The King of the Novel," which attractively (if unoriginally) acknowledges the deeply formative influence of Charles Dickens. The concluding essay, on Irving's friendship with G(infinity)nter Grass and the latter's embattled celebrity in his native Germany, is considerably more interesting. Irving is a heartfelt and headlong writer who doesn't spare the horses, or the fireworks. The many who cherish his energy and generosity as a novelist will find much here to whet their appetites for his next big tale.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-55970-323-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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